2026-03-24 The Wiggum Scale - Rating 2025's Most Heartbreaking Moments

Welcome to The Solid Verbal. The Solid Verbal. Come after me! I'm a man! I'm 40! I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for a day? Eat a steak. It's that whoop, whoop.

Dan Rubenstein, my great and good friend, welcome back to the show. Hope you have a good weekend. Hope things are warming up out there a little bit, starting to be a little bit nicer.

We had one shining moment on Saturday when it was 68 degrees and sunny, and then fell to a real feel of 17 degrees yesterday. I was on the Northwestern campus, actually. I went and saw Northwestern-Michigan tennis, Ty. Indoors, warm, free pizza. What more could you need? But it was a good weekend. A good weekend nonetheless. Saw family and friends. Went and watched some basketball on Friday afternoon. It actually kind of helped me with this idea for this show. I don't know how much you want to get into it, Ty, but I have a lot of thoughts. But it was a good weekend, Ty.

Excellent. I wanted to get into that. I'm going to tee you up here in a second to unveil the concept for today's episode, which I am very excited about. It cuts a little too close to the bone, I'm not going to lie. But it is a good concept. Now is the time of year to put it out there into the college football universe, and we will do that momentarily.

But before we do, hit follow, hit subscribe. If you have yet to do so, if you want to be with us all throughout this long, cold offseason, I guess not as cold right now because spring football is starting up. We have things to talk about on that front. With each and every passing moment, we've got a little bit more actually going on in and around the world of college football here in the offseason. But we'll get to that on a future episode. Verballers.com is where you can go if you want to further support what Dan and I do, get all these episodes without the ads a little bit early, access our Discord, and so on and so forth. And of course, if you've yet to do so, make sure you go out there and follow us on any of our social media accounts as well as our newsletter, Quick Slants. SolidVerbal.com.

So you said you watched a little basketball. I did too. Thursdays are always made for upsets. Fridays made a little bit more for some of the favorites. But March Madness is now in full swing. We did see a number of good upsets this weekend. I believe we're going to have Iowa versus Nebraska with a trip to the Elite Eight on the line, which is a pretty big deal, a Heroes game in just a slightly different form on the hardwood. Things are really heating up. I'm excited about the first weekend of games. I'm excited about where things go next week.

But as you said, it serves as a really interesting precursor to today's episode concept. I will admit, yeah, when you said this to me at first, I was like, okay, where's he going with this? Yeah. Where is he going with this? But the more that you unpacked it, the more that you described it to me. Yeah. Fell in love with it, Dan. What are we doing?

Thank you very much. First of all, real ones, no, it's called Nebraska Ball. Okay. And I know you're not a hoops head like I have been for the last 36 hours. Right. But no, I was watching Friday's action, specifically, I was watching Tennessee-Miami of Ohio. Miami of Ohio was like that, not a Cinderella story because they won a bajillion games and lost in the MAC tournament, but still made it in, and Tennessee kind of trucked them in the end. They were up big most of the game.

The thing I'm not going to say I love about the tournament, both the men's and women's tournament, honestly. I don't love it, but I appreciate the emotion of it is you get all those close-ups, right? You remember the Northwestern kid sobbing as Northwestern was losing a potential upset bid, or the, I think it was a Villanova, is it a flautist, Ty? Somebody who plays the flute? Yes. Sure. Yeah, great. Fighting back tears as she's playing the fight song or whatever song the Villanova band was playing as Villanova was going down.

I appreciate, you know, you get all the Surrender Cobras, and you saw the Florida fans as they were losing to, I believe, Iowa, right? They were upset by Iowa. A lot of emotions on the sideline, a lot of emotions in the crowd. I appreciate that. And they actually show that during One Shining Moment at the end, right? There's like the up of One Shining Moment and everything is great, but then it comes down, where it was like, hey man, you gave your best, and it's, you know, time is short, and the road is long, and the blinking of an eye, and the moment's gone. And so I appreciate that because you don't appreciate the sweetness of victory without the tart nature of defeat. The agony of defeat, yeah. Yeah, right.

And so I obviously was thinking about college football, and we're in college sports heaven right now with the NCAA basketball tournament, spring sports. And we know the portal guys coming in. We know the recruiting class. We know who's on the way out. We know who the new coaches are. We know what the schedule is. This is not a preview time of year. But this is a time to sort of make peace with whatever 2025 was or wasn't, Ty.

No question about it. I am ready to get hurt again. And I don't know what it took for me with Oregon after getting absolutely blown out by Indiana in the College Football Playoff, but it takes some time for a lot of us, even if your team wasn't in the College Football Playoff, that you are still nursing your wounds from the heartbreak of, I guess, very specific losses from the 2025 season.

And then I got to thinking about, okay, well, whose heartbreak was so public? And what reference is so current, Ty? Gotta be current, right? It's gotta be current. Super current. Yes. And so, a lot of people are in danger of having their college football fandom ruined. I'm in danger. That's Ralph Wiggum, of course. And the ultimate heartbreak for Ralph Wiggum was when he was humiliated on the Krusty the Clown television program, thinking that he and Lisa were a couple, Ty.

But if you're able to confront that heartbreak from this previous season, Ty, make peace with it and move forward, then you're the ultimate winner. I won! I won!

And so, what we're here to do is analyze the biggest heartbreaking moments of the 2025 season. Help people make peace with them. Analyze them as if they were, you know, you're going full Wiggum, which is, of course, in danger. Just danger of going full Wiggum. Maybe just semi-Wiggum. Don't look up semi-Wiggum on Urban Dictionary. Don't do that. No.

And I just want to go through some of those heartbreaking moments and analyze the heartbreaking nature of them and help people move past it. How about that? BetterHelp, I don't believe, is a sponsor on this episode, but could be and has been.

Dan, this is our episode to, as a collective here, work through some of these moments from the college football season. So, what we've got in front of us. Yes. Is a long list of games. We've got a dozen, I think, earmarked to talk about in this episode. I don't know if we'll get to all of them. We're certainly going to try. And then even beyond that, we've got like eight to ten more that we pulled out that, for whatever reason, were particularly heartbreaking this past college football season.

So, of course, as you are listening to this, if you have thoughts out there, be it about your team or somebody else's, solidverbal@gmail.com is how you can always get in touch with us. And of course, as I said at the top, you can reach out on social media as well.

Let me just start with this one, okay?

Mendoza in trouble. It's out. Don't stop and rock complaints. Unbelievable! Give him the Heisman! I thought Gus Johnson's soul left his body. Yeah. When Omar Cooper Jr. made a spectacular touchdown catch to give Indiana the win on the road in Beaver Stadium over Penn State, it was November the 8th, year of our Lord 2025, their final score was 27 to 24. For all intents and purposes, it was the closest I would say that Indiana came to actually losing a game this season. There were some other close affairs, but Miami was driving for the national championship game against Indiana for the trophy. Yeah.

But this one, they had to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and Omar Cooper Jr. made a spectacular catch. I remember the feeling of the stomach punch watching this one on my couch. Kate was away, like, I don't know, at the salon or something. The dogs were there with me. And I was in a full Surrender Cobra standing up in front of like maybe six inches in front of my big screen TV upstairs. The dogs were going crazy because I was yelling and feeling crazy myself.

It was a fabulous 80-yard drive, I believe, with 36 seconds left, led by Fernando Mendoza. As you heard Gus say, just give him the Heisman, man. I still don't understand the physics of Omar Cooper Jr.'s catch in the back of the end zone that gave them the lead and eventually the win.

For my money, and we've got a bunch on this list, maybe I'm just a little too close to Penn State. But that moment, especially given the context of where Penn State was at, because this was after they fired James Franklin. The season had already come off the swivel. They were looking for things to try and build around and play hard for the remaining part of the season. Losing that game to me was just pure agony as a fan.

Okay, so I guess what we should do, and it's not really backing up, but we should, not necessarily in like Wiggum parlance, but we should define the different kinds of heartbreak there are with college football, right? So, this is how many games in a row had Penn State lost at this point. So Penn State had lost five in a row at this point. They lost to Oregon, UCLA, Northwestern, Iowa, Ohio State.

So it's not as if this moment ruined Penn State's season. As you mentioned, they already had fired James Franklin. You already knew that the season was lost. This didn't put a stake in Penn State's season. What this was was an opportunity for Penn State to at least have one memorable win and moment. And it was taken away at the end because the stakes weren't anything for Indiana in retrospect, because even if they lose this game, even if it was Omar Cooper's foot not grazing the inside of the end zone and instead was out of bounds and Penn State wins this game, I believe they're still in the Big Ten championship game because they had the tiebreaker over Oregon. I believe. Right, right, right.

So ultimately, there weren't stakes that made or broke Indiana's season. The stakes at hand for Penn State in terms of the heartbreak was they had a chance to at least do something to affect somebody good in their race for a successful season. So it was a heartbreaking moment for Penn State because they thought that perhaps, you know, the Penn State community, perhaps they could have just this one thing, this one win, to sort of help define, you know, a silver lining for the season.

So ultimately, it's not the most heartbreaking moment of all of these. But I understand the heartbreak and like, can we just have this one thing? Yeah, why can't we have nice things?

By the way, he scored the touchdown with 36 seconds left. They got the ball back. And drove, Penn State did get the ball, yes. Well, no, I'm talking about Indiana on that game-winning drive. They got the ball with a minute and 51 left, scored with 36 seconds left. Penn State got the ball back, but wasn't able to convert.

Yeah, I mean, there are a couple different types of heartbreak. There are ones like this, where there is a miraculous play that just jumps up and gets you. We're going to talk about a couple here in a moment where one team jumped out to a rather significant lead, what felt like at the time an insurmountable lead, and then it was very surmountable. And things did not go the way that the, well, at least one side of things would have hoped.

We also have some odd plays and odd mistakes that cause things to happen. And then I would lump on top of that, we have some odd sequences at really high leverage situations. Those high leverage moments, be it an overtime at the end of the game, things of that nature, where things just really come apart, and it feels like one team that had momentum at one point or another suddenly cannot get its act together and they just fall apart completely. I'm sure there are other species of upsets here or species of heartbreak, I should say, that we can go through. But those are the big ones that jumped out to me.

See, I would qualify, in my estimation, I think that moment is more defined by Indiana excellence than Penn State heartbreak because it came at the tail end of already losing, what, five straight. I just think it's hard to look at, if you're going to look at a heartbreaking Penn State moment, I think it's the interception against Oregon in double OT, whiteout, when the hopes were still high for Penn State.

This is their headline game that they had circled. It's at home, it's whiteout, it's network TV. They come back after looking like they're not even going to compete at the end of the game. Force overtime. Oregon scores, Penn State has an opportunity to even things out and get in the end zone themselves. And it's a silencing moment by Dillon Thieneman with the interception.

So I think that sort of sucked the air out of Penn State's moment and season in a more significant way. You can agree, disagree, or whatever. But I think that specifically, I think that's the full Wiggum moment of the Penn State season, more so than the Omar Cooper moment. But you can, I know. Dillon Thieneman. It was a painful season for Penn Staters in Penn State. But I think that's where the heartbreak was.

And maybe it's because we were there and I got to feel that moment and the air gets sucked out of Beaver Stadium in a very specific way. But yes, I think the Indiana moment was more about Cooper excellence than Penn State heartbreak. That game against Oregon was the one that broke Penn State's season. Yeah.

And the difference is from the Penn State perspective, consider context. That game against Indiana, albeit very close, and they probably still feel like they could have won, there were no stakes for Penn State at that moment. Right. They were playing with house money. The season was already dead. They had fired their coach. Everything was in turmoil. The fact that they played well in that game at all was sort of an upset.

But the game against Oregon, the stakes going into that one. Again, we were there, so we understand the atmosphere of it. But the stakes going into that one, Penn State was a preseason top five team at worst. They were a very trendy pick to get to the national championship game, if not win all of it. And the fact that they had Oregon at home in that moment, that was a really symbolic moment that we had talked about in the buildup. Totally. Going all the way back to like last March.

This was one of those two games. Penn State needed to win one of them. They needed to beat Ohio State on the road. They needed to beat Oregon at home. One or the other would have sufficed. And would have given James Franklin, I think, a little bit more leeway. But the fact that, as he said, for a good chunk of that game, it felt like they were down and out. They didn't get their act together until late. They did go to overtime. And then the fact that it ended on that interception, as you said, by Thieneman.

You could have heard a pin drop in Beaver Stadium. There were 111,000 people there. Yep. A deafening silence through and through. So I'm with you. I think this is the true Wiggum. I don't know how we're classifying these, but this is what broke Penn State's season. And this is very much what I think started the chain of events that led to James Franklin being relieved of command and now coaching at Virginia Tech.

I think it's in retrospect full Wiggum because of the effects it had in sort of derailing the locker room. I think it's full Wiggum just because, look, Penn State's a huge program and when you have those types of hopes and you have sort of the needle in the blimp of the season, I think that's full Wiggum, not semi-Wiggum, just because of the lasting effects and the people who were there and the hype that went into that game.

I think it was so deflating that I think that's the biggest piece of what Penn State fans need to make peace with in terms of a moment from this season. Because that was the end, right? That was the end of Franklin can't win the big one. And then obviously the effects it had moving forward with the Northwestern and UCLA games.

Yeah, and by the way. Yeah. By the way. Penn Staters are still going to use that metric for Matt Campbell, winning the big one. You could argue that's why they got rid of Franklin. Franklin wasn't unsuccessful at Penn State. He wasn't as successful as people wanted, I'm sure himself included. But Matt Campbell will again be scored by how you're doing in those biggest games on the schedule. That is the hump that Franklin couldn't really get over. Right. Not consistently, anyway.

The only thing that's missing from that specific game in terms of it being full Wiggum is there's no real scar tissue between Oregon and Penn State. Oregon is a much more recent conference opponent. And so there's not a ton of bad blood there. You know, you look at, you know, rivalry games that come down to it. We're going to mention, when we can, this is an easy transition, like West Virginia-Pitt, right? West Virginia's season didn't go all that well. It was the first year of Rich Rod, but they got that win. They got that win. Pitt's season went much better, but it wasn't a win that included a Backyard Brawl win. Or it wasn't a season that included a Backyard Brawl win.

And so the only thing is, you know, the what and the when and the why and the how are all checked for full Wiggum, but not the who in this case. That's the only thing that's missing from the full Wiggum. Anyway, I digress.

Do you want to talk about the Backyard Brawl? Let's do it right now. West Virginia 31, Pitt 24, in overtime. This was back in, I guess, week two, September the 13th. Pitt blew a lead in the final nine minutes. The context for this is kind of funny, actually. Maybe not for Pitt fans. I would say no. Yeah. Not for Pitt fans.

But basically, and I'm leaving some details out, West Virginia drives 87 yards in 13 plays, they hit a two-yard game-tying touchdown with 11 seconds left, 24 all. They score in overtime after Pitt wins the toss, and like most teams that win the toss in overtime, elects to play defense. Pitt gets the ball back with a chance to tie it up, send it to double OT.

Instead, Pitt's overtime possession looks something like this: a one-yard loss, a near interception, a sack, and then just a desperation heave on fourth and 20 in overtime, which gave West Virginia, hated rival, the win. This was like salt in the wound here. Okay. That's the worst way to lose, especially since they had a lead at one point or another. They kind of gave it back, and then they trip over themselves in overtime.

So, yeah, not a great way to go into the season. Perhaps it was a harbinger of things to come. But it was one of the few bright spots, I'd say, for West Virginia, which was a team very much in transition, shifting over to Rich Rod. They had a ton of new players.

I was really high on Pitt, as you know, going into the season. The fact that they lost this one, this was a big moment for me. I remember typing to you, like, okay, maybe I, maybe we need to pump the brakes a little bit on all the Pitt love, because if you're losing to West Virginia amid all of their own turmoil, that could be a bit of an issue. Yeah.

And honestly, it's one of those things. The game is in Morgantown, right? Game is in Morgantown, yeah. Game is in Morgantown. You have an opportunity to make a statement on the road, and you have the opportunity to close out a win with good vibes going into the season when the Solid Verbal's Ty Hildenbrandt is high on your ceiling.

And season sort of, not doesn't collapse 'cause Pitt gets its act together, but it is sort of the beginning of the end for Eli Holstein. Yes. And there is a quarterback change that's imminent at this point. And you're like, well, if you can't get it done with a lead against a rival, like, what do we think of his, you know, ceiling prospects as a Pitt quarterback.

And there have been much lower moments. Like I looked back, I think it was 2023 with Phil Jurkovec throwing three picks in this game. Too soon, man. But this is a thing when, like, okay, the game doesn't happen for 11 years. So you have the renewed rivalry, the renewed emotion, and everything like that. We've had, what, four years the Backyard Brawl at this point, I believe. '22, '23, '24, '25. You can't lose this game if you're the better team. Doesn't matter where the game is, you can't lose this game when you have a lead. You can't lose this game when it's a kind of first-year coach for the other team.

And so it's sort of like no matter what the rest of the season looks like, and obviously Pitt had a nice middle of the season before kind of a less than impressive ending. Yeah, this one hurts. I don't know if it's full Wiggum. It's probably full Wiggum because of the renewed rivalry aspect of it and a lead, a late lead.

Yeah, and also, I believe there was a moment earlier in this game where Pitt scored something like 21 straight points. They were losing. They scored 20 points. It felt like they had momentum, and then suddenly they just sort of forfeited that right, and West Virginia came storming back. The final was 31-24. West Virginia won in overtime at home. I believe it was their fourth straight win over Pitt in Morgantown. Fans storm the field. Never great in a hated rivalry to have your opposing team's fans storm the field. Fourteen penalties for 118 yards for the Pitt Panthers in a losing effort. That's another rough way, another rough element of going full Wiggum, is you're just going to put yourself in danger, Ty.

I'm in danger. That's okay. Where are we going next? You tell me. Okay. I mean, do you have, is your, do you have, have you already established your number one most heartbreaking moment, loss, situation, whatever? Or are we yet to go there? Number one for me was just Penn State in general. Like those two Penn State games, there was enough heartbreak in one or the other, I think, to warrant as number one.

So you're going personal with this. And how can, college football is the most personal experience of all? Absolutely.

There is a Texas A&M-Notre Dame game that we can talk about now if you want to talk about that one. I mean, we can stick with early on in the season. My most heartbreaking moment comes basically at the end of the year. So it's up to you which direction we go. You want to stay early?

Let's talk about Notre Dame losing by one point at home to Texas A&M. Yes. A couple things were going on, if you remember the context here. The first thing was Chris Ash took over at the start of the year as defensive coordinator, and it didn't feel as if, at least not against Miami, and for most of the game against Texas A&M, it didn't feel like he had a great handle on things. I'm pretty sure a week or two after this game, I was out there tweeting "Fire Chris Ash" because the offense was playing okay, but the defense, it just took a while for this thing to sort of work itself out.

This is a game where they just could not stop Texas A&M. They couldn't stop them. And so your final here was 41 to 40, but the key moment that ended up essentially giving the game to Texas A&M. Giving the game. Not earning the game. Giving them an opportunity to win this game. No, I'm just being silly. Continue.

Was a fumbled snap on a routine extra point by a former Notre Dame quarterback in Tyler Buchner. Yeah. I went back, I rewatched it today. It was a perfect snap. He just dropped it. He just screwed it up.

So Jeremiyah Love scores a go-ahead touchdown, about two minutes and 53 seconds left. It feels as though things are very much trending in the direction of Notre Dame. They're about to go up 41 to 34 in that moment. In reality, botched hold. Tyler Buchner rolls out to his left, tries to make something happen, tries to throw it into the end zone. Former quarterback. Wasn't able to convert. Suddenly, they're only up six. They're up 40 to 34. Texas A&M gets the ball back. Marcel Reed went off in this game. Marcel Reed goes off in this game, leads a game-winning drive.

What was it? 13 seconds left on fourth and goal, they kicked the extra point, they end up winning it. So that was a bit of a death blow for Notre Dame's season, I guess we know now in retrospect, because it dropped them to 0-2. Ultimately, really big time stakes. Yeah. Yeah.

So the lasting image of Tyler Buchner dropping that snap, giving Texas A&M an opportunity to win with an extra point. That to me was big time heartbreak. Again, if I want to go personal with this. Now, was that the sole reason they lost? No. The main reason they lost is because their defense couldn't stop A&M. And was very good in this game. So it can't, it's probably not fair to put it all on Tyler Buchner, but that moment was very symbolic in more ways than one. And definitely had huge ramifications for Notre Dame's season. I think we realized that in retrospect. If they hadn't lost this game to A&M, they would have been in the playoffs. It wouldn't have mattered about that Miami loss. They beat A&M, they're 11-1. They're going to the playoffs.

Okay, so the crazy catch at the end of the game for the, what, essentially, the game-winning touchdown is Nate Boerkircher. I forget how you pronounce his name. Boerkircher, whatever. The number two tight end. He did end up having a couple more touchdowns this year, but in that moment, it was like they never passed to this guy. It was the only target that he had all game. Right.

And I think it was Mario Craver who was lighting them up. Killed them. Yeah, he went off. And I went into that game thinking Texas A&M had a disadvantage at receiver because of how good Notre Dame's secondary looked like they would be all season long. This is obviously early in the year, before Notre Dame had a chance to adjust and get their defense right, as they did do against, let's be honest, lesser competition than what they had early on in the season against Miami and Texas A&M.

The other thing, which I think you neglected to point out, and I think this sort of is a case for it being extra heartbreaking. It's an opportunity for you to be especially personal and petty as a Notre Dame fan, because every Notre Dame fan, yeah, well, as a Notre Dame fan would point out, a proper Notre Dame fan would point out, is it wasn't just holding, it was a full-on tackle. It was a really bad missed call. It was a bad missed call, and they happen all game long.

And if you were going to sort of adjudicate, is that the right word? If you're going to prosecute every single holding opportunity, the game would never go on, right? You'd have a flag on every play. But you wouldn't be, you know, being a proper, you wouldn't be acting as a proper Notre Dame fan if you, you know, didn't point out that it's especially heartbreaking when you go back and watch the slow-mo replay of that moment and what it included.

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a hold, it was a two-point takedown, is what that was. It was a really bad missed call. And it should have been called, and it wasn't. And, you know, with honestly, the way that their pass defense had played that game, Marcel Reed threw for 360 yards. Right. He pretty much had his pick of the litter every time he would snap the ball and drop back. I mean, guys were running wide open all game long.

So there's no guarantee that even if you push them back another 10 yards, they still don't score with the way the pass defense is playing. But that aside, yes, it was a horrible missed call, and it definitely still sticks in my craw. But again, I'm not going to sit here and say that was the main reason they lost. Just like the Buchner fumble wasn't the reason they lost. The reason they lost is because the defense couldn't stop anybody. They scored. The offense played really well that game. It really truly did. So that wasn't the offense's fault. It was just a defensive lapse that came back to bite them in like a couple of different ways.

Yeah, that's why I would say it's maybe not full Wiggum because of one, where it happened during the season, where you're like, it's week two, Notre Dame has plenty of time to win a ton of games. And also because you give up 40 points. You can't really lay a claim that you did everything right. And this loss was heartbreaking all the same.

It also wasn't like, I guess it was last second in that A&M scored a touchdown, the go-ahead, what amounted to the go-ahead touchdown with like 13 seconds left. Yeah. But that whole drive happened in slow motion for me as a fan. It was telegraphed that they were going to drive the field and score because they had done it the whole game. Yeah. So for me, it was more of a slow-motion heartbreak situation, but I still wouldn't classify it as full Wiggum.

Yeah. I'm in danger. Yeah, I think that's right. Can we stick with the Texas A&M theme? Because they were involved in the other direction. Well, no, I guess in a very similar direction with another heartbreaking moment. Yeah. Yeah.

Texas A&M won this one against South Carolina on November the 15th, year of our Lord 2025. 31 to 30. Now, close game? Yeah, of course. What's notable, though, is that South Carolina led 30 to 3 at halftime. 30 to 3. In advance of this game, teams were 0 and 286 in SEC play since 2004, when trailing by more than 27 points. Damn. A&M came back and won.

And it happened real quick in the second half, too, didn't it? Like you could feel it almost immediately after the second half kickoff that things were going to go south for South Carolina. And man, just the quote here from Shane Beamer: "To say I'm hurt for our guys is an understatement," end quote. I was hurt for those guys, Dan. I was hurt for those guys.

So yeah, this included the, what, the tunnel yelling, the Nyck Harbor moment with the cop. With the cop. This includes, or this was at the end of, I want to say, South Carolina having a season that ended with one SEC win. They go one and seven in the SEC, and this was at the end of a five-game losing streak before they beat Coastal Carolina and lose to Clemson. And this was a couple of weeks after the Alabama heartbreak, where they give that game away with a fumble at the end of the game, where it looked like they had that game in hand.

And then they completely disrupt. It was a, you know, a defensive masterclass in terms of confusing and taking advantage of Marcel Reed and the Texas A&M offense, right? They're just forcing a ton of mistakes and completely put Texas A&M on its keister in that first half. And for Texas A&M to come back the way that they did, for South Carolina to be completely unable to adjust and get back to what was working and figure things out on defense.

You know, as somebody who has watched their team, you know, the 2015, what, Alamo Bowl, different, a different situation, quarterback gets hurt at, you know, right before the half, whatever. But to watch that like slow developing car crash, that's real, real tough as a fan. So I don't know if it's heartbreaking as much as it is like a bloodletting. Right? That it's just the slow death of hope.

I mean, I'm always struck in situations like this when you just have basically a second different team come out at halftime. Right. South Carolina went in at halftime up 27 points. They came out on their first five drives of the second half, they managed just 53 total yards. And they lost the lead with about 10 and a half left in the fourth quarter. So there was time. They just couldn't get anything going. It was like a complete role reversal.

Then on their final play, LaNorris Sellers gets sacked on consecutive plays. And then it's fourth and 16. Rather than try to heave it deep, he just scrambles for seven yards, and that's it. That's it.

So, yeah, this one, for as great as it was for South Carolina in the first half, that's how terrible it was in the second half. I don't know if we lump this in sort of along the lines of the Penn State game that we talked about with Indiana earlier, but it was clear, at least to us at the start of the year, that it was going to be a rough go for South Carolina. Good players, some obvious holes. The season at this point in mid-November clearly hadn't gone the way that Shane Beamer would have hoped.

And so this was one of those moments where they can take down one of the best teams in the country. And it felt like they had them. It was a bit of a slow-motion car crash there at the end. And ultimately, as Beamer said, it was, he felt hurt for his guys. It felt as if South Carolina had one of the bigger upsets going here, and then it just fell apart.

Couple things here. If you're a South Carolina fan listening and already made peace with this and already decided that you're ready to be hurt again only for us to bring up old stuff. Yeah, we're sorry about that. I'm sorry. We're sorry. I get that. I'm sorry.

Two, this is one of those games, if you're a South Carolina fan or any fan of a team, watching your own team slowly give away a game, especially at the end of a losing streak. This is one of those games, game ends, you slump down in your couch or your barstool or wherever you're watching this game, and you just sort of say to no one in particular: of course. Of course, this is how this game went. Of course. Of course. Of course. This is how this would end.

And number three, and here's my sidebar here. Shout out to every Texas A&M fan who made it through the season with their heart in one piece. This is what we don't, I think, put enough respect on what Aggies went through in 2025, even with it being a clearly successful year.

This is what Texas A&M and Mike Elko, who has done a fantastic job for the Aggies, this is what they went through last year. They went through the Notre Dame game. Great, they pulled it out. Couldn't have been fun on anybody's ticker rooting for Texas A&M in this game, watching it go back and forth. Sitting on their hands to see if Auburn was somehow going to beat them in a close, weird, low-scoring game at the end of September. Shootout with Arkansas on the road where they couldn't get off the field. That's right. We're like, okay, this could completely derail our season.

The South Carolina game where you go down like you do at halftime. You're up 10-3 against Texas on the road at halftime, only to watch that game slip away from you with Arch's feet nonetheless. And then have opportunities to win a playoff game at home against Miami in 70-mile-an-hour winds, only to lose that game without ever getting in the end zone, 10 to 3. So you hold Miami, a legitimately very good offense, to 10 points with wind assistance, of course. Yeah. And cannot win a playoff game at home. So I'm just saying the season kind of sucked the life out of Texas A&M fans, even in a successful run.

That's not fun. Which Miami game do you want to talk about? Because there are two here that you and I pulled out of the lineup, right? There was the game that they played against Ole Miss, which obviously was much more disappointing for Ole Miss than it was Miami. There was also the national championship game, right, which you alluded to earlier. Miami has a shot. Clearly, it doesn't work out. Indiana ends up winning 27-21, but they had a shot down the stretch.

Miami was adjacent to a number of disappointing or potentially disappointing moments. We could go all the way back to week one against Notre Dame if you want. So we have options here with regard to Miami. Which one of those two playoff matchups in particular should we highlight here on this episode?

Okay. I think in terms of pure heartbreak, if you're just going to look for the Wiggum quotient, I'm going to say Ole Miss-Miami had more heartbreak at the end. Then, look, I know Miami, that game ends on an interception, you know, driving the ball down. The interception happened near the end zone, right? It was a deeper pass up the left sideline.

And there's a ton of emotion wrapped into it because the game was in Miami. Miami has this opportunity to get back to their promised land, the place that they feel that they should always occupy in this sport, which is competing for national championships. Lost in their home stadium? Lost in the home stadium. I know. It's undeniably heartbreaking. It's undeniably full Wiggum.

But in the case of Ole Miss in the back and forth game against Miami, there is something about what the previous month or so of what Ole Miss's season was. Their head coach telling the team, I haven't decided yet if I'm going to dump you or not. Okay? I have a deadline, a self-imposed deadline. I am figuring out if I am going to dump you for what I view as a better partner locally. I haven't figured that out yet. I feel like this other new partner is just more attractive to me.

Are you talking about Marty Smith, the tender hug they shared? Yeah, I'm talking about Marty Smith. Okay. The tender goodbyes between Lane Kiffin and Marty Smith.

So that's the way they head into the playoff with their head coach dumping them. And then reaching the point where they are the SEC's new alpha, right? They take down Georgia, which is also, you can make a very easy case, was a heartbreaking way for Georgia's season to end, of course. Sure.

Ole Miss going back and forth, having the lead in the fourth quarter against Miami, a terrific back and forth game. An improbable story with a D2 transfer as their new most electric player on offense at quarterback. An interim staff with Pete Golding taking over. He's the new guy, but like the coaches that are in and out and heading back and forth between Baton Rouge and Oxford.

Getting to the point where they're in position to go to the national championship despite all of that. Having Carson Beck with his legs improvise and score what became the game-winning touchdown, but still leaving enough time on the clock for Ole Miss to, in a really savvy way, move the ball downfield and put themselves in position for the win with, I think they got the ball back with like 18 seconds left, something crazy like that. Dozens of seconds.

And for Trinidad Chambliss to throw the ball up the left sideline from plus territory. And have his receiver, and they're hand fighting, and that's to be expected in a high-leverage moment. But to have his jersey grabbed and brought down, he's not brought to the ground, but he's brought down. Have Terry McAulay on Twitter immediately say, like, hey guys, that was PI. This was, you know, this was like one of those things that got Terry McAulay going this past season. This and players who wear pants that are too short. Yeah. Remember?

To have the ability to say like we were robbed on that last moment with a non-call, and also have everything leading, the baggage leading up to that game when you're one moment away from defying every odd and getting to the national championship game. That was my number one most heartbreaking moment of the season.

And again, I fully agree that Miami was full Wiggumed with their heartbreak at the end of the Indiana game. But I don't know. There was something about the baggage with Ole Miss at the end of that Miami game where I just say, in terms of heartbreak, I won! I won! I think that's my winner. The backdrop for Ole Miss here. Did I make a strong enough case? I thought I did. I don't know.

Oh, I mean, the backdrop here for Ole Miss can't really be replicated. At least in modern view. Can you imagine? You know what I mean? Like, that was such a circus with Lane Kiffin leaving, of course, the tender hug, Marty Smith, which I thought was very sweet. Same. But that situation was just mind-blowing.

And then the fact that they would make this run through the playoffs, I think, is testament to, I mean, the coaching staff on some level, sure, but just the players. It would have been really easy to be distracted by everything else that was going on. And they damn near could have won this game. I don't know what would have happened if they made the national championship, but they were certainly not a shrinking violet in this situation. No.

And this game, I would say, was one of the most pleasant surprises for me all year. Not that I expected that Ole Miss was going to get blown off the field by Miami. I certainly didn't. I thought it would be closer. And it was close. It ended up being close. But the fourth quarter of this game was nuts, man. It was nuts. And it was fun as hell to watch.

And I'd imagine if you were an Ole Miss fan, you're definitely left with some disappointment. If you're a Miami fan, you were left catching your breath. Because it felt like Ole Miss very much could have won this game. They dominated time of possession. They had 41 minutes to 18 minutes in terms of time of possession. All four lead changes in this game came in the fourth quarter. So it was a wild finish, to say the least, and definitely the kind that leaves you, I think, especially if you're an Ole Miss fan, wanting. That was a tough way to lose.

And, you know, to your point about the Hail Mary attempt, like, they just pulled him down. It wasn't like run-of-the-mill interference that you see on every Hail Mary call. And it wasn't even really a Hail Mary because it wasn't really thrown up or whatever it was. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, that felt like it went to a bit of a different level. Much the way that we talked about the holding call earlier with the Notre Dame and Texas A&M game. It's just added sauce. It's added sauce. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, look, the playoff had a bunch of these types of moments and like you can look at the Georgia-Ole Miss game, like that might have been the best game, the back and forth nature, and how Trinidad Chambliss just exploded in that second half. You can make the case that that was like the best second half of the season, perhaps. I don't know.

But I just, I think the baggage of that moment and or the baggage of what was leading up to that moment, the back and forth nature of that game, what was at stake in that game specifically more so than a quarterfinal. I don't know. That's my number one in terms of like, if I were putting myself in the soul of another group of fans, I think that would be the biggest hurt I could find.

We talked earlier about how the Penn State-Oregon game essentially broke the Penn State season. It ended James Franklin's tenure. I think now, in hindsight, we can make a pretty strong case that Utah beating Kansas State on November 22nd may have broken something in Chris Klieman. Oh, you don't have to guess. You don't have to theorize. You can watch his press conference after the game when he was struggling emotionally, which, by the way, I respect immensely. Of course. Because I would be the same way in that kind of back-and-forth game when you're up and you have the two-point conversion returned.

The exact nature of it, I think there was a third and 22 complete, like it was a 21-yard pass on third and 22 given up. Devon Dampier had like a 50-yard run on fourth and one, untouched to like the three-yard line. Just the emotional swings that game, you could see it just suck the life out of Chris Klieman. 51 to 47 was your final score. Kansas State rushed for 472 yards. Yeah. I mean, if you score 47 on Utah, any year's Utah team, and don't manage to win the game, it just guts you.

Joe Jackson, the running back for Kansas State, not shoeless in this one, ran for 293. He broke Darren Sproles' record that was set back in 2004. And they led by 12 with about seven minutes left. Yes. How did they lose this one? I mean, they couldn't stop Utah. The defense was just not where it needed to be consistently last year. Anytime Utah needed any kind of big play, they were able to get it.

This one also had one of those weird returned two-point conversion situations. So Avery Johnson tries to throw for two-point conversion. The pass is tipped. It's run back in the other direction, gives the defense two points. That got it to 47-37. And Utah then scores twice more. It was a long touchdown run from Devon Dampier. And then there was a go-ahead touchdown with like a minute left here, which gave Utah, as I said, the lead and the win.

Chris Klieman's post-game quote: "One of the greatest efforts I've been part of as a coach. And it's hard to say this because we lost the game. I've given my life for this place for seven years," Dan. Hints were right there that this might have broken something in his brain. It nearly broke something in mine.

I remember talking about this one after the fact. Watching it in the moment, it was crazy the way this one ended. Yeah. I mean, just not the type of game you would have expected, I would have expected between these two teams, especially with Kansas State's struggles on offense at times and Utah's, you know, excellence on defense at times in 2025, that Kansas State was able to find ways to just move the ball constantly on the ground, and Utah was able to pull it out.

Utah winning a shootout is just, you know, it happens as often as you can see, you know, the northern lights. I was going to say, speaking of things that break the brain. Yeah. Yeah, I think that goes without saying. It was the most rushing yards by an FBS team in a loss since Army ran for 534 yards back in 2017.

Yeah, I get it. I watched that game and I just felt it all over again for K-State fans. Here's what I would argue, though. This can't be full Wiggum. Not for K-State. Because the K-State season itself is probably full Wiggum. Struggling to figure out what went right, what went wrong, how did we get here. This was at this stage in the game, late November, it was clear that K-State wasn't going to be playing for the conference, wasn't going to be playing for anything, you know, like a playoff run or anything other than a bowl, frankly.

But the manner in which they lost this game, I think, was just an added stomach punch to what was already a disappointing year. And to their credit, they bounced back and won their next game, their final game against Colorado, 24-14. They were kind of back and forth all year long: win-loss, win-loss, win-loss. They were snip-snappy.

You knew the season was sort of going to be a different kind of K-State year. They open the season in Ireland and lose in a weird way, and you have the Avery Johnson brother and dad stuff. We're just like, oh, this is weird. You love that. And then I know. They lose to Army a week after Army had lost to, I believe, Tarleton State. Right. Just speaking of Army.

So it was just, it was not going to be their season. They lose the weird one at Baylor in the middle of the year. Get blown out essentially by Texas Tech. Weird win against Oklahoma State the week before this. It just wasn't their year, and Chris Klieman obviously felt like it was time for somebody else to take control of the program.

It's not all about the power programs, Dan. No, it's not. UNLV 51, Air Force 48. I love this game so much. I love it. It's probably not an Air Force fan. No, it's kind of not an Air Force fan.

When we were going through and trying to pick out some of these games, you brought this one up. I went back and looked at it. This was crazy. This game, there were 11 lead changes. In the fourth quarter, there were 42 combined points. Talk about a wild fourth quarter. Then there was, what, a failed kick that was pushed wide that could have tied this one up.

Your final score was 51 to 48 in favor of UNLV. This was another game in which any time anybody needed yards, they could figure it out because the defenses were truly that bad. UNLV did not partake in much defense last year. So UNLV's defense took a major step back from the Barry Odom era. Air Force had arguably the worst run defense in America.

Okay, so between those two very clear facts, and then you couple that this game happened right in the middle of five straight crazy games for Air Force. So Air Force loses a winnable game to Hawaii, a very winnable game to Hawaii. Loses a very winnable game to Navy on the road. Obviously, emotion and scar tissue there. Loses on the road at UNLV in this crazy shootout. Goes on to win a very losable game against Wyoming. And then their next game being an extremely winnable game against Army.

We talk about what Texas A&M put their fans through. Air Force last season finished 4-8 and felt like a gust of wind away from 9-3 or 8-4, something like that. And guess what? The Air Force defense, which had been so staunch for so many years, and they lose assistants, and they had all these upperclassmen that were succeeding for so long. They've taken a back seat these past two or three seasons. But man, that five-game stretch, that meaty middle of disappointment and nerves for Air Force fans could not have been fun.

We have two SEC games here. Yes. I want to give you the option of Georgia beating Tennessee 44-41 in overtime. This was back in early September. Or we could fast forward to the end of the year and the Iron Bowl, which Alabama won 27-20.

I would say Georgia-Tennessee has more Wiggum to it because you have that moment. It wasn't a short field goal. It wasn't a, it was like 42, 43 yards, I believe, for Tennessee to win that game. And then obviously it doesn't happen. They go to overtime. Georgia wins this game.

The reason there's something special about Georgia with Tennessee, aside from arguing about water rights at the border, which is an underrated part of this matchup. Come on, if we can talk water rights, Ty. Sure.

Whenever Tennessee seems to have turned a corner or seemed to have turned a corner, if that's better grammar, Georgia was right there to choke the life out of them in some way, to sort of end the vibes. And I don't think the vibes were all that high. Expectations weren't crazy high for Tennessee this season after how everything went with Nico and blah, blah, blah.

But Tennessee jumps out of the gate in this game. And they're like, okay, finally, because I don't think they've beaten Georgia in at least, what, a decade or so? Right. So there is that danger hanging over them that they just can't figure out Georgia, and Georgia's winning national championships, is one of the elites in the sport. They haven't met Neyland. They have him on the ropes. They have the moment to go nail in the coffin and in front of a home crowd.

Again, this is not on the kicker. A lot of things go into this game. But in terms of moments, this is where kickers either shine or don't. And in this moment, it didn't happen for Tennessee. And to go on at home to lose in overtime.

And then you talk about Penn State's season being ruined by the end of that Oregon double overtime game. Tennessee went on to, I believe, win zero more games against above-average teams in 2025. And they beat Florida. But otherwise, against the quality teams they played, they lose all of them. Somehow they were ranked, even still, near the end of the year. But yeah, this sort of broke Tennessee's confidence in a specific way against good teams, I feel like.

And even in their wins, I think they sneak by, what, Mississippi State shortly thereafter. It just wasn't a pretty year for Tennessee, mostly because of their defense. Yeah, this moment was particularly draining, I would say.

And an underrated stomach punch, I would say, related to this game was the Kirby quote afterwards. Oh, he always has something. He always has something. But his quote was: "I don't think we should have won that game." Yeah. Oh, that's right. He fully admitted how lucky they were. "I don't think we should have won that game," which does not make anyone on the Tennessee side feel any better about it.

Especially with the way they started. This isn't a full South Carolina-A&M situation, but Tennessee came out of the gate hot. Joey Aguilar completed his first 14 passes. They were up 21 to 7 in the first quarter, he was the first SEC quarterback to go 14 for 14 in 20 seasons, Dan. So it felt at least early like they had the wind at their back. As you said, they were playing in their home stadium.

I remember you and I going on the air after this one and talking it up like, man, Tennessee might be it this year. They might have something if they're playing this tight with Georgia. You know, at that point in time, it was only like week two. We didn't really know what we had. So we thought maybe that we had undervalued them.

I remember the episode we did with Josh Pate before the year, and we talked about how expectations with Tennessee and Tennessee fans maybe were a bit off because they had a lot of turnover, especially along their offensive line. What was the offense going to look like? Was it fair to expect anything big out of Tennessee?

You put in a performance like this, albeit they lost, it still felt like maybe there was a lot more room to grow and that perhaps the season could turn out a little bit differently. So it didn't. They obviously did not make it back to the playoff. Right. But this moment was definitely one that resonated in the early part of the year.

It was also, by the way, a game, again, this is not anything Tennessee fans don't know or remember, but just in terms of further context, Chris Brazzell lit up the Georgia secondary. There were legit questions about Georgia's defense after this game. Obviously, they got their act together and they figured ways out through injuries, stuff over the course of the season. But you're like, man, what's going on with Georgia's defense? If Tennessee is able to light them up like they were able to do, especially in the beginning of the game, but even throughout the game, Chris Brazzell was getting loose and winning 50-50 balls and just sort of mossing the Georgia secondary at times.

This one also had maybe my favorite pass of the entire season. Gunner Stockton. Gunner Stockton. Yeah. London Humphreys. A 28-yard touchdown pass down the right sideline on fourth and seven. Yeah, it was incredible. That throw, that was the epitome of huge, can I say balls on this show, Dan? Cojones? Yeah. Cojones factor? That was a big balls throw if I've ever seen one. Yeah. Gunner Stockton.

And I feel like we've had a couple moments now really pouring salt in the Volunteer wounds here. Well, we got to get over it together. It's true. I feel like that was one of the moments. We've had a couple of them now since we've become aware of Gunner Stockton, where he pulls a moment like that out every now and again. And it's like this dude's built just a little different. You can't count on him to go in a shell if you're an opponent. When the stakes are high, he just finds a way to make these plays, and that one was incredible. Yeah, I totally agree.

I want to go to a game late in the season, which had big stakes for one of the teams and had a particularly advantageous situation for the eventual losing team. And that's the SMU-Cal game. 38-35 on November the 29th. Cal fires Justin Wilcox. Ron Rivera and Cal fire Justin Wilcox after they lose the Stanford game. Nick Rolovich is the interim coach for Cal.

JKS has a good and promising freshman year for Cal, but SMU after a slow start has to beat Cal with an interim coach after being deflated because of losing their rivalry game to make the ACC championship game. That's right. Like that's all they needed with all the different tiebreakers involved. That SMU, two years into joining the ACC, I think in this new conference setup, would have been considered an ACC power. Right? If you exclusively make the championship game in your short time in a conference, you're one of the powers in a conference. And maybe they still are. I don't know.

But SMU has that opportunity. And Cal, just through bombing it down the field, an incredibly timely run for a game-winning touchdown, and an SMU field goal miss after SMU comes back to make this a game in an extremely winnable moment for the Mustangs. Cal is able to gut out the win.

And SMU does not go to the ACC championship game, and we thus get an ACC Championship game featuring, no matter who wins, the chances of them going to the playoff are pretty slim. Maybe if Virginia had stomped them, who knows? But even still, we had an ACC champion who was nowhere near playoff consideration, in small part at least, because SMU couldn't beat Cal in a winnable moment.

The thing that I would point out about this game. Yeah. SMU was down by 17 in the fourth quarter. Yeah. And then they put together like this furious rally. They get a go-ahead touchdown with a shade over two minutes. And yeah, that's when JKS sort of showed what he's all about. 75 yards in 99 seconds. They score with 43 seconds left. And then SMU drives the field. 16 seconds left. A false start pushes a kick attempt back. They call a timeout to avoid a runoff. Their freshman kicker attempts a 52-yarder. It sails wide left, and that's the game. Right.

The other thing that I would add, if we are trying to present a full 360 view here, three of SMU's four losses were kicking related this past season. So they had one in double OT against Baylor. They also had one when they lost at Wake Forest 13 to 12. I don't know if you remember that game, was kind of a weird game. So kicking was definitely an issue, and something we'll, I guess, need to pay a little bit more attention to as we preview the Mustangs here.

But the stakes in this one, like low-key, this is a devastating loss for SMU. Yeah. There was a lot riding on this game. The fact that, again, devastating loss potentially for the ACC. For the ACC. I mean, the ACC had a team in the national championship game. So it didn't necessarily kill their credibility because Miami went on to great things. Right. It killed their championship game credibility. That's right. And their tiebreaking credibility. And in other ways, that happened as well.

But yeah, if SMU wins this game, they're in the top 20. They have an opportunity to beat top 20 Virginia. And Virginia has an opportunity to beat top 20 SMU. And that likely changes the complexion. It does change the complexion of who gets into the playoff with regard for, I guess, James Madison or the ACC champion. So, yeah, a lot of stakes, and SMU had the chance to come back and win, but couldn't get the stops when needed.

And SMU was allowing like under 20 points a game. Yep. And Cal was just able to light them up.

So look, we have a bunch more here. We're not going to have time to get through all of these, but can I just rapid fire go through two that I think deserve to be mentioned? Yes.

The first is New Mexico beating San Diego State 23 to 17 in double overtime. This one was also at the end of November. A lot of stuff broke at the end of November. So, again, context is important. Remember the Mountain West situation. Remember that our friend Bill Connelly had at least a small role in determining who would play for the Mountain West because they had no tiebreaker.

So there are implications here for San Diego State. And they get this game to overtime. Their ambitions to win this game in overtime are undone by three straight false start penalties. Maybe you can attribute that to crowd noise. I don't know. Right. It pushes them from first and goal at the 10 all the way back to the 25. They get sacked on back to back plays. Before you know it, they have what amounts to a hopeless fourth and 30 situation, but really fourth and goal, that they do not convert. They end up losing.

Obviously, that was not the way that they expected that one to go. For New Mexico, it was a nice win, right? As New Mexico was still very much in the hunt as well. Totally. For that Mountain West Championship.

The other game here, and we don't cover this maybe as much as we should. The FCS National Championship game? Oh, man. Yeah. Was it Montana State-Illinois State? Illinois State was an unseeded 8 and 4 team that won four straight road playoff games to get to the FCS title game. They outgained Normal, Illinois? Yeah. Shout out Normal. They outgained Montana State by 90 yards. They had a go-ahead field goal and an overtime extra point blocked. If they convert either of those, they win the national championship.

The end of that game. I remember watching the end of this game. And it was one of those deals where the old man is tired. I'm watching in bed. Yeah. And I'm seeing this unfold, and I am just standing up pacing the room because of what I am watching. It was one of those deals where you just wanted to sort of yell at the television. Because honestly, it felt like both teams should be doing better, should be a little bit more buttoned up if you're playing in the national championship.

So it never felt like it was a given for either one of these schools. But it just so happens that a few more things broke in favor of Montana State to give them a 35 to 34 win in the FCS National Championship back on January the 5th. Right. Yeah. It was wild, especially having come in a national championship game.

The heart-wrenching moment for Illinois State. And look, it felt like they were on bonus, borrowed time given that there were no expectations for them to be making it this far. But man, incredible finish, incredible job for Montana State, getting the job done. Getting the job done late. When I guess you're going to be criticized for micro decisions or big decisions, but I don't know. I appreciate the effort both ways.

Give me like one or two more rapid fire and then we'll let the fine people go.

Oh, I thought Iron Bowl was not like full heartbreak for Auburn because we've obviously seen endings to this game going both directions. That you can obviously make a very easy case that a couple years ago with Jalen Milroe making that throw at Auburn being the heartbreaking moment in the recent era of this back and forth.

But I don't know, there was something, and I always appreciate this about the sport, where, again, another interim situation where, yeah, Auburn's season went sideways, Hugh Freeze isn't the guy, but they're able to, especially on defense, dirty up this game enough and make Ty Simpson look and the offense look ordinary enough and the Alabama offensive line look ordinary enough that they have the opportunity to, if they can get a couple of breaks on offense, to just completely, you know, prevent Alabama from making the College Football Playoff.

And they're, you know, obviously unable to get the job done in the end. But having that within your grasp. Who was it? Malcolm Simmons was making all the plays? Had two really out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Heartbreaking for Auburn. If you don't have the chance to be the team, the power, the opportunity to play spoilermaker is almost as tasty. And Auburn had it within their grasp, but couldn't quite finish it out.

Yeah, I remember Cam Coleman leaving the field. He was like, they showed a shot of him. He was devastated. Just losing that game. And there were real implications with regard to the playoff and Alabama, because at that moment in time, end of the year, it's Alabama, it's Notre Dame, it's Miami. And it felt like two of those three teams were probably going to get in. And clearly, Alabama loses that game, they're not getting in. So it felt for a hot minute like Auburn was going to win, but Alabama was able to hold them off.

Yeah, 20-all, Ty, game in the fourth quarter with Auburn's backup quarterback. Ty Simpson, three and a half yards per attempt in this game. So Auburn did plenty, but yeah, I get the heartbreak of wanting to play spoiler and coming up just short.

Okay. Last was a national championship game. We're going to go back to the national championship game. Okay. Yeah.

I just want to point out that on that field and in that place and with Miami's season being as weird as it was, given the losses to, what, Louisville and SMU. Given that they needed the ACC's only bid, be it an at-large bid, to make it to the playoff, the road that they went through with the Ole Miss win and the Ohio State win and the Texas A&M win, all weird games or losable games given where Ohio State was.

You know, scoring one touchdown and needing a huge defensive play at the end to beat Texas A&M in a very windy setting, which, by the way, better team won that game. Better team won, yeah.

And then finishing out the Ole Miss game like they were able to do, having the ups and downs of the national championship game, and then having a crazy Fernando Mendoza play, having opportunities throughout the game. Having moments with, you know, looking undisciplined and having penalties, and still having an opportunity at the end of that game, and losing on an ill-advised Carson Beck pass. Even though he was the guy who put them in position to even be there in the first place, I just think that kind of wild ride, starting out with the Notre Dame game, the close Notre Dame win.

Having the argument all season long about being behind Notre Dame despite the head-to-head win and the weird losses, and to have that moment, even still, to get through what Miami got through. And even when you look at some of the lowlights of the Mario Cristobal era at Miami and some of the highlights, like they'd been, Miami fans had been through everything these past couple years.

And to have it on the plate, I don't know what this terminology is, but to have it in front of them, to be able to taste a national championship for the first time in whatever it was, 25 years, 23 years. And have it end the way that it did is just crushing. I think it has to be said. It's so rare that you get to play for something of this magnitude in your home stadium. Yes, totally. Like that was, I thought, maybe one of the more underrated aspects of the national championship this year. You had a team playing at home.

And it wasn't as if their defense got torched. I mean, look how many teams we saw throughout the course of the year get torched by the Indiana offense. That was very much not the case. What was it, like 10-zip the end of the first half, something like that? It's not like Indiana was running over this Miami defense. I thought the Miami defense acquitted itself quite well. It's just offensively, they really couldn't get it going for a good chunk of this game. They were really bad in the first quarter on third downs. They had trouble all throughout the game, I should say, on third down. So it took them a while to get going. Once they did, they did give themselves a shot in the end.

I remember talking with you. Did we do a watch-along for this? We might have done a watch-along for this. Yeah. But I remember we were just sort of like reminding people of the narrative around Carson Beck that he gets in these moments, and sometimes, you know, like this is where you got him, like turn him loose and maybe he makes a bad decision. And these are some of the interceptions that everybody had been talking about going into Miami's playoff run here.

When you're really sick. But again, their only reason they're there is because of the good things Carson. That's exactly right. To the point, Carson Beck and Miami were in this game because they were really smart about how they use their personnel, how they scheme for some of their opponents throughout the playoff.

The fact that they lost, essentially, or at least sealed the game on that interception by Jamari Sharpe. That in and of itself was sort of a full circle moment, just because we saw finally from Carson Beck what some people have been warning about, ourselves included, in some of those high-leverage situations.

So, a backbreaking interception. Certainly not the reason they lost. They lost because Indiana was the better team. And I thought they acquitted themselves well. But I would say probably full Wiggum. Oh, yeah. Just because it's a national championship. Like I know we wanted to talk about the Ole Miss-Miami game a little bit more, but I don't know. You lose a national championship in your home stadium. You never know when you're going to get back to that game.

College football has a lot more parity these days, and everybody is loading up who's got the resources to do so. You just never know what the next season is going to have in store. Disappointing, but I thought a good game for Miami, albeit in a loss. Yeah.

I mean, look, there are obviously countless games from the season on every level where you're just like, a team has it in their grasp. You know, I wanted to maybe talk a little bit more about, but I, you know, I don't like rubbing salt in wounds all the time. Oregon-Iowa, where top 20 matchup at home, two-point conversion where a guy's foot is out of bounds. Weird weather, right? The weather was hot. Weird weather. Gary Danielson just painting himself in black and gold in the booth.

You know, the gods decide not to tell the referees to call an obvious defensive holding at the end of the game, and Oregon still is able to pierce through the vaunted Iowa, what is it, the Joe Moore Award? No, Iowa couldn't run in this game at all. And just Iowa has it. It's an ugly game and that's built perfectly for Iowa to win at home in bad weather, keeping the, you know, a, I think it was 18-16 was the final score. That's a perfect recipe for an Iowa upset. Oh, yeah. And Oregon steals one on the road.

My guy, Mark Gronowski. Your guy, Mark Gronowski. He had a play where it was a called jump pass where nobody went out for a pass near the end zone. That's right. He threw a ball that was sure to be incomplete, but it was tipped up. And a different receiver catches the ball, but his foot is out of bounds. And that would have, I think, tied the game. Or it would have given Iowa 21-18, a three-point lead. Three-point lead. Yeah. And Oregon could only have tied it with a field goal at the end.

It was Kamari Moore. He caught it in the back of the end zone, but was ruled just out of bounds. And that kept the margin at one. And then Dante Moore, who had struggled for the vast majority of the game, threw an interception in the end zone early in the game. Yeah. He ends up ripping off five straight completions after going, I think, without a completion in the second half up to that point. So it was just not a good game for Dante Moore. But gets them within field goal range. Atticus Sappington drills a 39-yard field goal with three seconds left to give them an 18-16 win. Crazy game.

Yeah, considered a bunch here. Other ones, but yeah. I mean, you mentioned New Mexico-San Diego State, Arkansas-Texas State was crazy, Kennesaw-Liberty was crazy. But yeah, that's the sport, man.

Write in, solidverbal@gmail.com. Let us know what we got right, what we got wrong, what we missed. How you felt watching some of these games. We always like to hear some of those emotional stories. You know, like we're not going full Nance up in here. But if you want to flavor some of these wins and losses with some of your own personal emotion, we would love to hear it. Again, email us, send it to us via social media, whatever your chosen platform. We'd love to get your feedback. Agree.

All right, give me one more of those Wiggum sounds. Why not? I'm in danger. Yeah. We're all in danger, aren't we? Oh. You said it, Ty. I won! I won! Beauty!

For that guy over there, Dan Rubenstein, for myself, Ty Hildenbrandt, over here in Eastern PA. Thank you as always for downloading, for listening, for supporting what we do. Hit follow, hit subscribe so that you don't miss any of our episodes. Next one drops on Thursday. Stay solid. Peace.